Cho Liang
have been aggressively trying to enter into the lucrative North American markets
and one such example of this attitude is
the full copper CB0315U17 Socket A Athlon XP heatsink. The heatsink (which
really ought to have a less abstract name if it is ever to see
wide acceptance) is based on three sets of copper parts, brazed together and
then heavily sanded and polished to a mirror finish. The bright, shiny look will absolutely grab
your attention if you ever happen to see it on a store shelf.

On the plus side, this
finish leaves the heatsink looking like a shiny aerodynamic block of copper. On the negative
side, the heavy polishing takes away from some of the machining which tends to indicate
manufacturing quality.

Faced with that information void it is difficult to tell
how well the base has been treated. The undercut for the socket cam arm is evident,
but has the base simply been punched out under high pressure, or has it been
machined flat?

Looking at the side of
the base it is pretty evident that the base plate has been punched out,
but this isn't always a negative strike, and in fact the engineers straight edge shows
the base is pretty darn flat over the center.

Still, even though the heatsink looks cool it appears as though
Cho Liang are using single U-shaped copper fins back to back without any kind
of bonding. If the clip hadn't bent one of the fins down (the clip is free
floating in the heatsink) we wouldn't have even noticed.

The three prong clip is a really nice
touch, and something we wouldn't have expect to see - only a few mainstream manufacturers
are using three-prong clips, and it is pretty impressive to see that Cho Liang are
following suit.